Escaping the Heat, Day 28

August 5, 2022

Rocky Mountain High, Colorado

Time to move on and settle into a VRBO for a few days. An author, I can’t remember who, wrote that she could make a home anywhere, while her husband needed one place in which to root. I tend to be the former. When we travel, I unpack, nesting, even if only for a couple of days.

I have loved Colorado since first visiting as a child. Mike and I got acquainted with different parts of the state through my cousin in Leadville and our older daughter who lived near Denver and then across the state in Grand Junction. Because Mike and I, perhaps more I, have considered it for a summer home for retirement, I was looking forward to experiencing Fort Collins, a town I have never seen but of which people speak highly.

We exited Grant Tetons National Park to the east and encountered a unique landscape. We marveled at the red rock similar to Sedona in the Wind River Painted Hills near Dubois, Wyoming. Is it wind as in breeze or wind as in clock? Is it Duboys, Dubwa, Duboy? We never found out.

Unable to locate a local park for picnicking, we stopped stop for lunch in Rawlins, Wyoming, at the Peppermill Bar and Grill where the bowl of chili satisfied my hunger but not much else. The drive to Fort Collins, Colorado, being rather long for elderly bodies, we didn’t stop to sight-see along the way. Toilet breaks were enough. As the landscape lost its luster, morphing into bare, unimpressive hills, I retreated into a book. When the nice lady on Google Maps welcomed us to Colorado, I felt relief.

We found our way to 520 S. Loomis in Fort Collins, entering the property through large metal tube gates off the alley. The lock code worked, and we entered an attractive guest house. Although surprised to find no laundry facilities and no dishwasher and a second bedroom atop a precarious spiral stairway, we were confident that we would manage for the few days we were calling this home. Being in Colorado, we headed out in search of a brewery, easy to find in a university town, and settled on Snowbank. We enjoyed draughts while sitting outside, conversing with other guests and their dogs, and enjoying nachos from the Three Sons food truck.

Around 2:00 a.m, I awoke at my usual time and realized there was no stove in the kitchen. I really need to read the fine print.